June2024

As we end another week, this leaves us just 3 weeks until the end of term and the end of another school year! I really don’t know where the time goes. Please make sure that you’ve looked at our published key dates as we have a lot of events and celebrations planned over the last 15 days! 

Year 4 MTC Results

The Year 4 MTC (multiplication Tables Check) results were released this week and I am delighted to report that 75% of our children scored full marks (25 out of 25), compared to a National predicted standard of 36%.  84% of our pupils scores 24+ marks.  A huge congratulations to our pupils in Year 4 and to the staff who have worked really hard to ensure that the children performed their very best.

Other Results

Early Years GLD = 90%

Year 1 Phonics = 95% 

Year 6 Writing = 93% ARE (28% GDS)

Sports Day

Thank you to everyone who came along today to support our sports day events. The children had a wonderful time competing in the traditional sports day events organised by our sports team.

Summer Fair 

Please remember that our summer fair is being held on the afternoon of Friday 12 July at 2:30pm. School will close early at 2pm to accommodate this. Please do support where you can by attending and helping us raise extra funds for school so that we can continue to provide the children with wonderful opportunities and experiences.

Class Arrangements for 2024/25

On Wednesday, we had a practice run for September where all of the children had the opportunity to spend the morning in their new classrooms with their new teachers and teaching assistants.  There was a great buzz throughout the morning with everyone on their best behaviour and making their best first impressions! I did write to you all with details of class arrangements for September; these details can also be found here.  

Staff Changes

It’s that time of year where we are welcoming new members of staff and I’m delighted to share that we have appointed some excellent additions to the team for September:  Mr Walker will be teaching in Year 6 and joining our English leadership team.  Mrs Smith and Miss McConnell  will be joining us as Teaching Assistants.  We will also be preparing to say goodbye to other members of staff who are retiring or moving onto pastures new - I will share more information about this in the coming weeks.

Reports & Open Parents Evening

On Wednesday 17 July we will be handing out school reports during our ‘Open Parents’ Evening’ (3:30pm-4:30pm).  You can also use this time as an opportunity to meet your child’s new class teacher and see where their classroom will be in September. We do not send out appointments for this event, it is much more informal, giving you a chance to thank class teachers and teaching assistants.

Attendance

Thank you to everyone for ensuring that attendance has risen! We have had a superb week of attendance, with 3 classes achieving 100% and a further 7 classes exceeding 97%.  This brings our attendance figures for the 

year to date to 96.4% with an impressive persistent absence rate of 6.8%.  I really appreciate everyone’s efforts to help improve attendance which in turn ensures greater achievement. 

At Lea Forest we believe there is a strong link between attendance and safeguarding. A child's absence from school can often be an early indicator of an increased need within a family and poor attendance can be a sign of a safeguarding concern. A child who is not in school is a child who is not achieving: development, social and emotional wellbeing and safety may all be compromised. It is important that if a child is going to be absent from school, parents call in every day throughout the absence.

Our attendance has been remarkable this week! 

10 classes have smashed our 97% target and Elmers, 2BS & 4SH managed to achieve 100% attendance.   

Our attendance for 

the week is

97.1%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.4%

Our curriculum garden continues to flourish, and we're thrilled to announce exciting new additions! Plans are well underway for the construction of a wildlife pond, alongside the installation of a life-size chess set and a beehive.We're eager to see these developments come to life and believe they will significantly enhance the learning experience for our students. The wildlife pond will foster biodiversity within the school grounds, while the chess set will provide a unique and engaging outdoor learning space. The beehive will offer valuable educational opportunities about the importance of pollinators and their role in our ecosystem.

We'll be sure to keep you updated on the project's progress and can't wait to share the completed features with you soon!

At Lea Forest we aim to develop our pupils’ character through the growth of relationships that define us as human. Through our curriculum, we develop a set of competencies (behaviours) which enable each and every one of our pupils to lead a remarkable life. These competencies can be found at in the ‘Character Curriculum’ section of our website.

In addition to the tasks provided by individual class teachers, a ‘Character Curriculum Challenge’ will be set fortnightly on the newsletter. On this occasion, we would like you to create some ‘Wild Art’ Remember, the only limit is your imagination. What will you use, and how? There's so much to choose from in the natural world - but make sure you're not making your art from another creature's home.… Remember to send your pictures of your ‘Wild Art’ to Mr Croxon or your class teachers (either on Class Dojo or Twitter) and the best ones will be evidenced in the ‘Character Curriculum (evidence) Book’ for your class! 

We've reduced our electricity usage by 8% so far this year that's a saving of almost 10,000 kWh of electricity and enough to run an average house for 5 weeks.

Our Gas savings are even better! We've managed to save almost 20% so far this year by adjusting our boilers to ensure they are as efficient as possible.

It's been a busy week for our sports teams as #TeamLeaForest travelled to Erdington, Yardley and Acocks Green to compete in several football matches and tournaments.

On Tuesday our boys played Paget school and won 5-0 in a dramatic goal filled match. Mr Comrie was very impressed by our youngest players.

On Wednesday, it was the turn of our amazing girl's team to travel to Yardley. They played brilliantly throughout and reached the semi-finals of their tournament. Our girls team were an absolute credit to our school pushing their limits throughout.

On Thursday, girls from Key Stage 2 visited Archbishop Ilsley school in Acocks Green for a festival of football, playing against schools from across our area. 

We've been busy recording our trips to school this week and have recorded 8,099 active journeys to school so far this month.  Our most active classes this week are: 

4NN, 2JM and 5SJ.

Coercive Control

Coercive control is a form of domestic abuse that can often be overlooked. Some examples of coercive control are: controlling and isolating behaviours, using threats and coercion, emotional abuse, or economic or financial abuse. Although it is usually mainly adults who are affected, children can also be impacted by this type of abuse. Some of the impacts may be:parents and carers describing children as quiet, stressed and depressed; behaviour changes including children emotionally and physically abusing parents and siblings; children expressing worries and fears about their parent and carer’s coercive and controlling behaviours;some children engaging in self-harm and disruption to children’s social and support networks. For more information please see https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/2023/impact-coercive-control-children-young-people 

WOW! What a week! We have had success after success and had so many achievements to celebrate.  I shared with you that we had completed the Phonics assessments in Year 1 the previous week and I am delighted to share that 95% of the children in Year 1 managed to score 32+. We had another great piece of news on Friday when we were awarded The Modeshift Stars OUTSTANDING accreditation award and the Living Streets ‘Birmingham School of the Year’ - this is in recognition of all the hard work we have done on active travel. Fingers crossed for one more achievement to end this week as I travel to London with 7 other members of staff to attend the TES Award ceremony this evening where we are shortlisted for Primary School of the Year.  I will share the outcome with you next week!  

RSE Curriculum

Next week, your child will receive a unit of lessons on Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE). The purpose of the lessons is to provide knowledge and understanding of safe and healthy relationships based on love and respect. This is to encourage the eventual development of safe and healthy relationships in later life. The unit will develop understanding and attitudes, which will help pupils to form relationships in a responsible and healthy manner and to appreciate the value of stable family life, including the responsibilities of parenthood and marriage.If you would like to find out more, you can view our RSHE policy on our website.

Staffing Update

I was delighted to see Mrs Newbold this week who has finished all of her treatment and is fit for work again. She can’t wait to be back in school full time, but for now she will be on a phased return, starting next week, to ease herself back in gently.  Mrs Crutchley will also be returning to school next week on a phased return.  Ms Wale will continue to teach 4NN and Mr Wright will continue to teach 5SC. 

Transition Morning

Just a reminder that next Wednesday is our Transition morning.  This is a fantastic opportunity for your child to meet their new teacher for the upcoming year. It'll be a fun and informative session that helps ease them into the new term.  We understand starting a new year can bring some nerves, but being there on Transition Morning is crucial as it allows your child to ask questions, get familiar with the classroom, and build connections before term officially begins.  Please make sure your child attends unless there are exceptional circumstances. 

Sports Day

Don't miss Sports Day fun on Friday, June 28th! Cheer on your children while enjoying a BBQ with meat/vegetarian options, samosas, pakoras, and refreshing drinks. The local ice cream van will also be there! The weather forecast is sunny, so pack hats and sunscreen. We look forward to seeing you there!

We are pleased to say that we have seen an improvement in attendance since the start of the new half term. There are however several children who arrive late at school regularly and who are missing vital parts of their education. The following tips are aimed at making sure everyone gets to school on time: 1) Parents; set an appropriate bedtime and stick to it. 2) Make sure your child gets to bed on time so you can get up fresh in the morning. 3) Put uniform, homework and PE kit ready the night before. 4) Set your alarm a little earlier than you think.It will make a difference!  5) Put the breakfast things out ready for the morning.

Our attendance this week has been affected by lots of unauthorised term time holidays. We know that all our classes can do better next week. RCG, RFH, 1AC, 2BS 5SC and 6SR all managed to beat our 97% target this week.

Our attendance for 

the week is

94.8%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.3%

Learning Through Doing: Students will get hands-on experience with planting, caring for, and harvesting fruits, vegetables, or flowers (depending on the garden's design). This will help them understand science concepts like plant growth and the importance of healthy ecosystems.

Healthy Habits: The garden can be a springboard for discussions about healthy eating and where our food comes from. Students may be more likely to try new fruits and vegetables they helped grow!

Last week our building consumed 2670 kWh of electricity and 1580 kWh of Gas. We're currently on track to better our pledge of reducing Electricity consumption by 5% and Gas usage by 8% by March 2025.

Bright Sparks Challenge:

Don't leave devices on standby! Switch your devices off at the wall socket if you’re not using them.

This year, our Career’s Day was a huge success. We had a large number of volunteers who came to Lea Forest to speak to Years 4, 5 and 6 about their career journeys. The speakers had mostly taken different paths, and had individual journeys to gain experience, knowledge and a true feeling of what they really wanted to do as a career. Children were exposed to a whole range of career paths. 

We've been busy recording our trips to school this week and have recorded 5921 active journeys to school so far this month.  Our most active classes this week are: 

4NN, 5SJ and 2JM..

Welcome to our ‘Online Safety Tip of The Week’. On each newsletter, we will provide you with some useful hints, tips, guides and fact sheets from the National Online Safety (NOS) website that you as parents and carers will be able to use to help keep your child safe whilst online. This week's free online safety guide focuses on ‘Cryptocurrency’. Cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin) is software enabling the exchange and storage of digital ‘coins’ representing financial value. To monitor who earns which coins, platforms save an online record of every transaction, called a ‘ledger’ or ‘blockchain’. This is secured by cryptography: a set of methods for protecting sensitive information. As cryptocurrency becomes a more established part of digital life, young people are bound to encounter it, so it is vital that they understand the risks. 

Social Media

This week our safeguarding focus is on social media. Children and young people use many different social media apps and sites. The most popular are Facebook and Instagram, and there are many others such as Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter. Whilst there are many benefits to pupils having access to the online world, it also comes with many risks, especially if use is unsupervised. Studies have found that excessive use of social media increases a young person's susceptibility to depression, anxiety, poor body image and self worth. It can also impact a child's sleep routine, which in turn can affect their ability to concentrate and thrive in school. Please ensure that you follow the age restrictions for different social media apps available. Most of the apps have age restrictions starting at 13 years old. These are in place to protect the children. 

Energy Efficient Appliances

Invest in energy efficient appliances. The EPA gives the ‘Energy Star’ label to eco-friendly appliances when they meet energy efficiency specifications, making it easy to decide what appliances are the most efficient. 

Well, our feet haven’t touched the ground this week as there has been so many events and activities taking place…But, we wouldn’t have it any other way at Lea Forest!  Attendance has been really poor over the last few weeks as families have been taking unapproved holidays.  Attendance will remain a huge focus until the end of term - please make sure children are in school on time, every day!

Last weekend, we invited along our new Reception pupils and parents, starting with us in September, for a picnic.  The weather was really kind to us and it was a brilliant opportunity to meet some familiar, but also lots of new faces.  Some of the children were really nervous at the start, but didn’t want to leave us by the end. We can’t wait for our new children to start with us in September.  Staffing in Early Years for September 2024 is as follows: NSM - Mrs Moughal (with Miss Peachey), RCG - Mrs Gonzales (with Miss Freeman) and RFH - Mrs Hartwell (with Miss Thomas).

I know this is an exciting time of the year for the children (and for parents), but the rest of the school will get to find out new teachers and classes on Wednesday 26th June - when we have our transition morning.

As we move closer to the summer holidays and the weather improves, we request that children come to school with sun cream already applied and with a suitable hat with their name in.  There is more information on the website for parents here.  

Year 1 Phonics

This week, Year 1 have been tested to track their progress in Phonics.  Mrs Gonzales has carried out the Phonics screening tests with every single child and we have been blown away by the amount of progress made.  I will share our results as soon as I am able to do so.  

Year 4 Multiplication Tables Checks

A huge well done to our Year 4 children who have completed their multiplication checks this week.  The purpose of these checks is to determine whether your child can fluently recall their times tables up to 12, which is essential for future success in mathematics. All children have worked extremely hard to improve their fluency and rapid recall of facts and have done themselves, their teachers and you proud. Well done and thank you for your supporting your child with this work this year. 

Thank a Teacher Day

The UK-wide celebration of all teaching and support staff is back, National Thank a Teacher Day will be celebrated on Wednesday 19th June.  Please don't miss your chance to say thank you to a member of staff - let them know how grateful you are by submitting a 

Thank a Teacher Google Form.

I would like to say Eid Mubarak to all of our families celebrating Eid this weekend.  As school is closed to pupils on Monday 17th June for a staff training day, this day will be able to be used as a day for religious observation by the pupils. All children will be expected to be in school on Tuesday 18th June. On Tuesday 18th June, children will have the opportunity to share their Eid experience in class if they wish to and join in with some Eid related activities.

This week we have seen an improvement in terms of attendance, although many families continue to request holidays in term time. Regular attendance is crucial for academic and social success. Missing school can disrupt learning and make it difficult to catch up. Some children are missing out on part of their education by arriving late to school. The gates are open from 8:45am. Please make sure your child arrives before 9am when the gates close. We are monitoring punctuality very closely and may contact you if we have a concern.

Our attendance is back on track this week! We had three days above 97% and finished the week above our 97% target. Let's keep this going next week and make sure every day counts at Lea Forest.

Our attendance for 

the week is

97.2%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.4%

Bee numbers have steadily been in decline over the past several years but now gardeners are doing their best to grow flowers that will help out our little buzzing friends. If we all do this together then hopefully numbers will start to increase again.

Here's 10 great bee friendly plants to bring a buzz back to your garden: Holyhocks, Foxgloves, Cosmos, Geums,Hellebores, Lavender, Buddleja, Crab Apples, Wall Flowers and Single Dahlias

It's summer and whilst this year has been wetter than we are used to, we still need to think about our water to usage to ensure we have plenty left over for the drier months.

The average hosepipe uses 170 litres of water for every 10 minutes that it is turned on. That's almost 19 flushes of a toilet in just 10 minutes!

Make sure you don't leave the hosepipe running and use rain water barrels to water water plants in the garden.

Last week we used 2700 kWh of electricity - about the same amount an average house uses in a year. We need to do more to reduce this figure as it's higher than normal. Our solar roof generated 1270 kWh of power, roughly 50% of our building’s energy needs for the week!

Bright Sparks Challenge:

Can you keep the switch off the big screen every time you leave your classroom?

We've been busy recording our trips to school this week and have recorded 4368 active journeys to school so far this month.  Our most active classes this week are: 

RCG, 2BE and 4NN.

At Lea Forest we aim to develop our pupils’ character through the growth of relationships that define us as humans. Through our curriculum, we develop a set of competencies (behaviours) which enable each and every one of our pupils to lead a remarkable life. These competencies can be found on the Character Curriculum page of the LFP Website. In addition to the tasks provided by individual class teachers, a ‘Character Curriculum Challenge’ will be set fortnightly on the newsletter.

On this occasion, we would like you to take advantage of the improving weather and ‘Skim a Stone’. It’s a tricky skill to master, but if you’ve got a steady arm and a keen eye, you’ll soon learn how to do it. Remember to send your stone skimming pictures to Mr Croxon or your class teacher (either on Class Dojo or Twitter) and the best ones will be evidenced in the ‘Character Curriculum (evidence) Book’ for your class! 

Welcome to our ‘Online Safety Tip of The Week’. On each newsletter, we will provide you with some useful hints, tips, guides and fact sheets from the National Online Safety (NOS) website that you as parents and carers will be able to use to help keep your child safe whilst online. This week's free online safety guide focuses on Instagram. Regarded as one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, with over one billion users worldwide, the platform allows users to upload images and videos to their feed. The platform (which is owned by Meta) also allows users to follow friends and “like” their content. Disappearing "stories" can be fun, but also impulsive. Direct messaging allows private chats, but raises safety concerns. Parents can help by discussing responsible use, privacy settings, and fostering positive online habits. 

PANTS Rule

This week our focus is on the PANTS rule. The talk PANTS campaign was introduced by the NSPCC to help children understand that their body belongs to them, and they should tell someone they trust if anything makes them feel upset or worried. PANTS is a simple and clever acronym devised to teach children the underwear rule: Privates are private; Always remember your body belongs to you; No means no; Talk about secrets that upset you and Speak up, someone can help.  For more information watch the NSPCC video.

It has been amazing to see so many of you practising your fluency of your number facts and times tables in school and at home. 

Here are this week’s Numbots stars:

Year 1 - Bobby Forbes

Year 2 - Ethan Jones

Gruffalos - Abdullah Hussain

This week’s Rock Legends are:

Year 3 - Saxon Watts

Year 4 - Raya Rehman

Year 5 - Lacey-Mai Riddell

Year 6 - Kelsea Semahoro

Gruffalos - Aidan Nur

During the next few weeks, our pupils will be taking part in citizenship lessons around our British Value of ‘Democracy’. The announcement of the general election, on the 4th July 2024, has provided the perfect platform for our school to explore the British democratic system. 

Pupils will have the opportunity to express their views in respectful classroom debates whilst also  learning about voting; parliament and government. 

Welcome back after what I hope was a wonderful half term break!  I cannot believe that we are moving into the last half term of the year! It’s been a really busy week back and we’ve hit the ground running in true Lea Forest style.  The children have been engaged in their learning and it has been great to see our classes making the best of the lovely weather and tending to their allotment plots.  We have a lot planned for the remaining weeks of the school year, so be sure to check out the key dates on our website.  

Early Years Induction Meetings

We held induction meetings for parents of children joining us in Nursery and Reception in September 2024. It was a great opportunity for parents to find out more about Early Years and general life at at Lea Forest. We also went through our induction process which makes starting school easier for both parents and children.

Year 1 Phonics Screening

We will be starting our Phonics Screening on Monday 10th June. The screening is an opportunity for children to show their ability to decode words using their phonics knowledge. Year 1 pupils have been well prepared throughout Reception and Year 1 for the screening and it will follow the normal routine the children are used to with Mrs Gonzales. Wish them luck!

Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check

Year 4 have started their Multiplication Tables Check this week and will continue to do so next week.  Please encourage your child to continue to log onto timetable rockstars over the weekend to continue to practise and further embed their skills. I’m sure the children will do brilliantly!

Early Years Picnic

Tomorrow (Saturday 8th June) we are holding a picnic for children starting school in September who are welcome to join us between 12 -1pm. This is a fantastic opportunity for the children to visit their new classroom and meet the Reception team.  If you are coming along, feel free to bring along snacks to enjoy!

Earlier this year, the government published guidance on changes to managing unauthorised attendance in schools.This will become law in September and new attendance procedures will include an increase in the amount parents are fined for taking holidays in term time. Fines will also be able to be issued for any combination of unauthorised absences where more than 5 days of school are missed in a ten week period. This can include repeated absence for birthdays or other family events. Please help us improve attendance by making sure children are in school on time every day.

Our attendance dropped this week as lots of families have taken UNAUTHORISED holidays in term time.  We need to work hard to get our attendance back up to our normal levels next week.

Our attendance for 

the week is

94.2%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.3%

Careers Day at Lea Forest Primary Academy

Wednesday 19 June 2024 

9.30am - 12.30pm

We are holding our annual Careers Day this year and we need your help. We are looking for volunteers to come in and speak to children about their career journey. Research has shown that children who have meaningful encounters are more likely to have a positive educational and employment outlook. Over the last two events, children are finding out and exploring jobs they haven’t even heard of and their feedback was incredibly positive. We had many parent volunteers last year, and we are hoping to have some more!

Please register your interest by 

completing the Google Form here: https://tinyurl.com/LFPCareersDay2024

Over the half term we did our best to power down as much of the school and our devices as we could. We managed to reduce our energy usage last week to 1306kWh. That’s amazing!

Our solar roof generated 1095 kWh of power, roughly 80% of our building’s energy needs for the week!

During next week’s lessons, our pupils will be discussing the following questions: 

• Does school help you with your relationships? (KS1)

• Do you get enough relationships education in school? (KS2)

Welcome to our ‘Online Safety Tip of The Week’. On each newsletter, we will provide you with some useful hints, tips, guides and fact sheets from the National Online Safety (NOS) website that you as parents and carers will be able to use to help keep your child safe whilst online. This week's free online safety guide focuses on ‘Roblox’. Roblox is an online game creator system where the majority of the content is created by “amateur” game creators in Roblox studio. These game makers are able to create and publish games to the community using simple tools, which can then be played by children worldwide, often online together, through a phone or tablet application or a web browser. Due to this, PEGI has altered their rating from PEGI 7 to ‘Parental Guidance Recommended’ because of the amount of user-generated content.

Child Sexual Exploitation

This week our safeguarding focus is Child Sexual Exploitation. This is something that happens when a group or individual takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity. It is a hidden crime and quite often the victim is groomed by the abuser and therefore does not understand that they are being abused. This abuse can start online and then images or videos can be used to threaten the victim into continuing a relationship. Signs to look out for can include: changes in emotional wellbeing, spending time with older individuals or groups and going missing from home or school. 

https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/child-abuse-and-neglect/child-sexual-exploitation

It has been amazing to see so many of you practising your fluency of your number facts and times tables in school and at home. 

Here are this week’s Numbots stars:

Year 1 - Armaan Khan

Year 2 - Ethan Jones

Gruffalos - Aadam Nawaz

This week’s Rock Legends are:

Year 3 - Zoya Zaheer

Year 4 - James Holden

Year 5 - Anaya Arshad

Year 6 - Ayaan Mohammed

Gruffalos - Adil Rahim

Ditch The Herbicides

The chemicals in herbicides can cause habitat alteration that affects the species living in these habitats. Look into natural alternatives to kill weeds, such as mulching your lawn, laying down glass panes for several weeks to burn them away before planting your garden, or hand-weeding once you have.